☰Menu

The Leftovers 1.08 Review: “Cairo”

The recent renewal of The Leftovers was certainly a relief. Just knowing that we’re guaranteed at least another season makes watching it a little easier. That being said, this episode was the strangest one yet because Kevin’s finally aware of his erratic blackout behavior.

Things start out semi-normal for Kevin. He’s enjoying a nice dinner with Jill, Aimee and Nora until even that turned awkward when the girls started grilling Nora about carrying a gun. She doesn’t seem to mind their questions, but Kevin of course is embarrassed that Jill would be so rude to even want to check Nora’s purse herself.

I feel pretty bad for Jill. She’s so curious about Nora because she can’t understand how she can seemingly be okay all of a sudden with having lost her entire family. Later Jill breaks into her house to look for the gun and finds it hidden in her son’s Trouble board game. She doesn’t take the gun, instead leaves it laying out for Nora to be reminded of it. In that sense, I can almost understand why she went to the Guilty Remnant.

Kevin definitely won’t be happy when he discovers that Jill has gone off to stay with the GR, especially after his encounter with Patti. After going to sleep in his own bed that night of the dinner, he wakes up to Dean banging on his truck window in the middle of the woods somewhere. Apparently Kevin was responsible for abducting Patti and driving her out to Cairo, NY to tie her up in some old cabin from his childhood camp.

Some interesting questions were posed and even a few were answered out in this cabin. Patti doesn’t recognize Dean so she jumps to the reasonable conclusion that he must be a ghost, to which Dean sarcastically replies, “I prefer to think of myself as a guardian angel.”

Dean solves the mystery of the dog in Kevin’s yard, explaining that it was a bet between them that if Kevin could civilize him, Dean has to stop shooting the dogs. Most importantly, Patti admitted to killing Gladys. She even goes so far as to threaten Kevin that Laurie’s time will come and she’ll be “okay” with that. All of this came out after Patti was desperate to get Kevin to understand the GR’s mission. Basically, they choose to “strip away attachment, fear, love and anger” in order to serve as “living reminders of what you are so desperate to forget.”

I have to wonder if Patti was just messing with Kevin this whole time. Maybe she and Dean were working together to drug him, drive him out to the middle of nowhere and fabricate this whole story about a night he can’t remember. That would make sense in a twisted way, especially after Patti slit her own throat just to prove a point to Kevin. Plus, the GR wasn’t too concerned that Patti had been missing all day.

The way that Laurie took control over the GR when Meg started losing her cool on Matt almost felt like she knew she was stepping up into the leadership position. Laurie also accepted the task from Patti to be at the church for a special delivery that had something to do with the clothes Patti had laid out. I don’t know why yet, but I think they ordered a truckload of those Loved Ones dolls. The packages they were unloading were all shapes and sizes, and it would appear that they’re going to even dress them in appropriate clothing to truly shock the families who lost people in the Sudden Departure.